Manual work is killing your team's efficiency and productivity. Developers wait for infrastructure. They fight with config files. They repeat the same steps over and over. Platform engineering automation is the only way forward if you want to be more competitive.
Platform engineering automation fixes this problem. It removes boring work that slows teams down. Your developers can focus on building features that help to accelerate business growth.
In this article, we will take a closer look at platform engineering automation, including best practices and tools to use.
Key Takeaways:
- Automation speeds up DevOps by cutting repetitive manual work.
- It improves consistency, security, and compliance across systems.
- Self-service tools give developers more freedom and faster workflows.
What Is Platform Engineering Automation?
Platform engineering automation uses software and AI tools to handle setup tasks. It creates environments. It deploys code. It manages cloud infrastructure. No human help needed, except to check the AI Copilots' work and sign off on in-the-loop tasks.
This starts when you create simple instructions. These instructions tell the system what you want. An AI-powered automation engine reads them. Then it builds the actual cloud resources, network rules, and security policies.
Modern DevOps automation uses GitOps principles. Your infrastructure should live in code repositories. When developers make changes, automated systems catch the changes. Then the AI-powered system updates the real environment to match the code.
However, these kinds of automations should only happen if a human engineer, like a QA developer, can check any real environment or application changes before they go live.
The goal is simple. Make things easier for developers. Now, let’s look at the benefits of platform engineering automation.
Benefits of Platform Engineering Automation
Below are some of the benefits of platform engineering automation and why so many DevOps teams are taking this approach.
Speed and Efficiency
Automation makes everything faster. It does many things at once. It removes waiting time. Tasks that took hours now take minutes. Setting up environments used to need multiple operations teams. Now it can happen with one click.
DuploCloud customers see huge speed improvements. They used to wait days for new environments to be created, used, and then decommissioned. Now they get them in minutes.
Reliability and Consistency
Humans make mistakes when doing repetitive work. We can’t help it. We aren’t hard-wired for repetitive tasks. Automation and AIs don't make these same mistakes.
When you use Infrastructure as Code (IaC), every environment builds the same way every time. Modern tools track your settings.
If one of the team changes the infrastructure manually, the developer platform catches it. It can alert you or fix the problem automatically.
Security and Compliance
Automated systems enforce security rules without human oversight. They add security guards at every level of your cloud platform.
Compliance automation goes further when it comes to maintaining security. For example, for SOC 2:
- It maintains audit logs
- It enforces access controls
- It ensures proper data handling.
Another example is HIPAA automation, which finds protected health information automatically. It logs access and handles breach notifications.
Better Developer Experience
Self-service automation helps developers work independently and more efficiently. They don't file tickets. Devs don't need to wait for operations teams. With automation tools, they can provision resources through simple interfaces.
Self-service tools can deploy code when ready. And then they can manage apps themselves. A good developer portal puts everything in one place.
Platform engineers can use these to create templates that make complex tasks simple.
Cost Control
Automation controls cloud costs by scaling based on actual use. Instead of guessing resource needs, automated systems have right-sized infrastructure. They can shut down unused resources automatically.
However, you must have the right rules in place first to avoid anything being shut down that’s actually needed, or without anyone checking what an automated tool is doing.
Next, let’s see which five core areas are the best to automate when starting out with platform engineering automation.
5 Core Platform Areas to Automate
1. Infrastructure Setup
Use Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tools like Terraform or Pulumi. These create repeatable infrastructure builds. Modern tools handle complex network configs and security policies automatically.
Instead of writing the same network setup repeatedly, they use templates. These templates include company standards and best practices.
DuploCloud's no-code approach works for teams without deep infrastructure skills. It translates simple requirements into detailed cloud configs. It handles over 500 cloud services automatically. You can use AWS, Azure, and GCP without writing complex files.
2. CI/CD Pipelines
With the right tools, you can automate your entire deployment process. Modern CI/CD pipelines do more than build-test-deploy. It includes progressive delivery and canary deployments. It even has an automated rollback.
Smart pipelines run tests in parallel. Unit tests, integration tests, and security scans happen at the same time. This reduces the time you’d normally be waiting around. Advanced pipelines can even create temporary test environments.
The deployment process can use blue-green deployments. New versions deploy alongside old ones. Traffic switches only after validation passes. Canary deployments roll out changes to small user groups first. If problems happen, automatic rollback fixes them in seconds.
3. Security Checks
Build security into the development process early. Automated security scans catch problems before deployment. They can block bad code from reaching production. Saving loads of time you’d normally spend hunting for bugs!
A DevOps engineer can set up continuous security scanning. It checks every code change for vulnerabilities and policy violations. Security becomes part of normal development instead of a separate step.
4. Monitoring Setup
Auto-configure complete monitoring systems. Include metrics, logs, traces, and synthetic monitoring. Modern monitoring does more than basic alerts. It includes smart notifications and automated fixes.
Automated monitoring finds new services automatically. It sets up monitoring agents. It configures dashboards with the right metrics. It creates alerting rules based on service agreements. Distributed tracing tracks requests across services automatically.
Site reliability engineering teams benefit most from automated monitoring. It helps them maintain service quality without constant manual work.
5. Scaling and Resource Management
Set up smart scaling policies. Look at more than just CPU usage. Modern scaling considers app-specific metrics, queue lengths, response times, and business metrics.
Kubernetes can scale based on custom metrics like database connections or message queues. It can also adjust resource requests automatically based on actual usage. This ensures apps have enough resources without waste.
Now let’s see which tools you’ll need to implement platform engineering automation.
Platform Engineering Automation Tools
The automation landscape includes numerous specialized platforms and individual tools:
- DuploCloud: Complete automation platform with Infrastructure as Code, CI/CD, monitoring, and security
- Terraform: Infrastructure as Code for multiple clouds
- Argo CD: GitOps continuous deployment
- Jenkins: CI/CD automation server
- Kubernetes: Container management with built-in automation
- Open Policy Agent: Policy enforcement automation
- Prometheus: Automated monitoring and alerting
Platform engineers often combine multiple platform engineering tools. But integrated platforms like DuploCloud reduce complexity. We provide multiple platform capabilities in one solution.
Generative AI is also starting to help with platform automation. It generates config files. It can suggest improvements. It can also write automation scripts from simple descriptions.
Platform Engineering Automation Best Practices
Below are five simple ways to guide yourself and the team into platform automation.
1. Start with Clear DevOps Rules
Define clear policies before automating. For example:
- What can developers provision themselves?
- What needs approval?
Clear rules prevent automation from creating security or cost problems.
2. Automate Step by Step
Don't automate everything at once. Start with the most repetitive tasks that frustrate your team. Build confidence with early wins before tackling complex workflows.
3. Monitor Your Automation
Track automated workflows like you track applications. Know when automation fails and why. This helps you improve processes and operational efficiency.
4. Include Developers Early
The people using your automation should help design it. If developers don't find it helpful, they won't use it. Regular feedback ensures you build something valuable.
5. Document Everything
Good documentation reduces knowledge gaps. It makes onboarding new team members easier. Document how to use automation and why you made certain decisions.
How DuploCloud Simplifies Platform Engineering Automation
DuploCloud takes a comprehensive approach to platform engineering automation. Instead of cobbling together multiple tools, you get a unified platform that handles:
- Fully integrated workflows: IaC, CI/CD, observability, and security work together seamlessly
- No-code provisioning: Deploy to AWS, Azure, and GCP without writing complex configuration files
- Automated compliance: Built-in support for SOC 2, HIPAA, PCI, and GDPR requirements
- Pre-configured infrastructure: Kubernetes (K8s) clusters and deployment pipelines come ready to use
- Cost visibility: Track spending and optimize resource usage automatically.
Ready to eliminate manual DevOps work? Discover how DuploCloud can automate your platform engineering workflows and accelerate your development velocity.
The Future of Platform Engineering is Automated
Automation in platform engineering will keep growing. Future developer platforms will use orchestration, AI-driven scaling, and automated security.
Companies that invest in automation now get big advantages. Faster delivery cycles. Lower costs. Happier development teams. The question isn't whether to automate: it's how quickly you can start.
Don't let manual processes slow down your development team. Start your automation journey with DuploCloud today. See how much faster your team can ship when the platform handles repetitive work.
Platform Engineering Automation Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
How is platform engineering automation different from DevOps automation?
DevOps automation focuses on individual tasks like CI/CD pipelines or infrastructure setup. Platform engineering automation takes the complete approach. It automates entire developer workflows across the full application lifecycle.
How does DuploCloud work across multiple clouds?
DuploCloud provides unified automation across AWS, Azure, and GCP through one interface. You can provision resources, deploy
applications, and manage security policies consistently across all three cloud providers without learning different tools.
Which tasks should teams automate first?
Start with repetitive work like infrastructure setup and CI/CD pipelines. These give the most significant time savings and build trust in automation.
